


Three County Highway

by Missy



Category: Laverne & Shirley (1976)
Genre: Child Abuse, Domestic Violence, F/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-25
Updated: 2010-04-25
Packaged: 2017-10-09 03:28:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,808
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/82529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Missy/pseuds/Missy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life has all the ups and downs of a carousel.  Lenny's reliving them, one by one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three County Highway

**Author's Note:**

> WARNING: This fic is, in part, a story in which a main character recovers from a marriage to a closeted pedophile that detonates in self-recrimination and violence; it's also a love story between the survivor and another man and includes expicit sexual content. It also includes domestic violence, attempted murder and discussion of the sexual abuse of a child. If you find any of these subjects triggering, please select another story to read.

"Open your mouth and close your eyes and you will get a big surprise."

 

"I ain't fallin' for that one again!"

 

The blonde-haired little girl pouts, putting her hands behind her hips and thrusting her feet forward. "Daddy!"

 

"You gotta get up pretty early in the morning to fool your old man," Lenny says, very proud of himself for outwitting the thirteen-year-old as he swirls around his half-finished milkshake. The eyes watching him are mirrors of his own, childish in their disappointment as she pokes at the sundae. "Yanno, you're not being a good girl right now," he says, using his best Ward Cleaver tone. "And little girls who ain't good don't get to go to see fireworks with Aunt Shirley tonight."

 

"We saw fireworks yesterday," his daughter says, spooning bananas and melted vanilla ice cream into her mouth.

 

"But today's the fourth of July," Lenny whines. "You gotta go see fireworks on the Fourth of July! It's Kosnowski family tradition!"

 

"It's not Kosnowski family tradition! Every Fourth of July, I go to Buzzard's Bay and watch fireworks with Aunt Shirley and Uncle Walter and Aidan and the twerps. I dunno what you and mom do."

 

He hopes he isn't blushing - the kid's getting harder and harder to fool the older she gets. "We do grown-up stuff."

 

"Do you mean you have intercourse?"

 

He chokes on his milkshake and the green-eyed girl reaches out to shake him. "Daddy! DO YOU NEED THE HIEMLICH MANUEVER?" she shouted hysterically.

 

He regains control of his throat and gently pushes her back into her seat, giving fake and semi-sarcastic smiles to the other people patronizing The Purple Cow. "Where'd you learn about that?" he whispers.

 

She shrugs. "We had sex ed last year. You signed the slip I brought home, remember?" He remembered, and didn't want to. She folded her hands in front of her and concluded, "Missus Bradwyn said you should never have intercourse without a condom. I thought you should know."

 

"That's okay. I knew," he says, feeling a blush creep up his neck.

 

She pats his hand comfortingly, suddenly as wise and calm as Doctor Ruth. "Don't be embarrassed, Daddy! Whatever you and mom do, I'm sure your intercourse is part of a healthy and nurturing relationship between two consenting adults." Her clipped tone tells Lenny that she's parroting whatever the teachers have told her. The school had beat him to educating his own daughter, and now more than ever he realizes it's time to deliver 'the talk', an option that makes his stomach clench.

 

"Yeah. Let's not talk about this again. EVER," he says. While standing up from the bench and stretching, Lenny feels bones crackle in his neck. "Okay, whattya wanna do?

 

Her expression melts into a shrewd moue and she gobbles down the rest of her sundae eagerly. "Can I ride the carousel again?"

 

He considers, mixing up the chocolaty goo on the bottom of his gray-and-red-flowered paper cup with a whirl of his wrist. "Okay. Then we're getting fudge and meeting your mom."

 

She jumps up with a whoop and runs down the street, sending him off into a run at her heels. She is a wild, headstrong thing and it frightens him. She's thirteen, he thinks to himself, and she thinks she's forty. Had been forty and holding from her first breath, the day the stern-faced nurse placed her in his arms and his daughter looked up with him with her ancient, wise eyes. Lenny knew instantly that he was in over his head. What were we thinking? he asked his wife. She always laughs at his jokes, but a pillow to the side of his head informed him she was in no mood for one at that time. When their daughter had turned into a spirited and big-hearted little hellion, he would look at her with a superior little lift of his chin on occasion. I told you so. They had differing points-of-view on parenting from the start. His goal was to keep the baby safe. She sought the opposite with no fear - a ride through life like a Comanche on horseback. That's why we need another one, he thinks to himself. This one will listen to me.

 

The do listen to him, even if they don't always pay attention. That's one reason he knew he'd never leave. The other reason also explains why he loves his daughter so much.

 

She's just like Laverne.

 

***

 

Sixteen Years Before

 

***

 

They were married on a cloudy, stormy night. The bride was attended by her best friend, but the only relative in attendance was her father. She wore white, he wore black, and in tribute to the married couple a very large Doberman plunked himself directly in the path of the exiting wedding party and took an enormous piss.

 

What Lenny really remembered was the cake - three layers, devil's food, white icing. In his opinion, the best thing about the reception. The sad thing, Laverne told him much later, was that the cake was the best thing about the marriage right from the beginning.

 

The news had blindsided him, though he tried not to show his shock. As it had been with Shirley and her Doctor Walter, he and Squiggy had barely gotten an introduction to Arturo Spirito before being invited to the army officer's wedding to Laverne. Lenny tried his best not to be hurt by that. He knew what it felt like to be swept away by real love, even if it'd never worked out for him. While he indulged his inner doormat, Squiggy had been incensed by Laverne's thoughtlessness to the point of inconsolability, and was placated at last by Laverne's offer to have them both be ushers.

 

Lenny met the groom for the first time at the rehearsal dinner, which was memorable for the French pastry tray, half of which he'd stuffed into his coat pockets as a take-home gift. He had been nervous because Laverne liked the man, and he wanted to make a good impression, maybe even put himself up for future god fatherhood.

 

The wedding coordinator - a redhead in a busy dress - pushed himself and Squiggy into line beside two beefy Army guys sporting square haircuts. They were so boxy that Lenny felt like a little shrimp beside their towering presence, but their opinions didn't matter to him, so he stuck out his jaw and tried to look tough.

 

Curious, he looked up the line, peering at Arturo. The man looked like a model - a typical Laverne conquest, Lenny mused - big, muscular, sparkly dark eyes, big head of curly hair. When her Pop walked her up the aisle and placed Laverne's teeny hand in Arturo's, Lenny noticed that the groom's mouth was loaded with huge, white Chicklet-like teeth. . Laverne had hooked herself a pretty nice fish, Lenny decided, a wave of gloom washing over him. He half-listened to the orders of the coordinator, knowing that his part involved helping Missus Babbish down the aisle and into her seat. A monkey could do it, he pouted to himself.

 

"Hey, dummy," Squiggy said, smacking him in the shoulder. "Show's over and supper's on."

 

He came out of his trance to see the wedding party assembling themselves by a buffet table. His stomach grumbled and Lenny obeyed it, starting with the little fried shrimp.

 

The chicken wings were out of reach. Thrusting out his hand, Lenny's nails scraped up along the crystal plate. He went on tiptoes, pointing like a figure on a fountain as he searched for a little chunk of chicken. Just as he reached victory he lost his balance, and went smack - bang! - Into the solid shoulder of an impossibly-monster shaped dark hulk beside him.

 

Lenny looked up, sporting his biggest smile and desperately trying not to ruin the day. "Sorry..." he gulped. A pair of cold gray eyes looked him up and down, a nasty superior sort of look that gave him a chill.

 

"No problem," the voice was pure Brooklyn, the tone warm but the underlying meaning a sheet of ice. "Just don't do it during the ceremony." The words were said in a jokey tone, but an awful icy chill filled his body, an instinctual alarm bell warning Lenny not to mess with this man.

 

Squiggy had already begun to advance in on the scene, instantly defending him in the way, Lenny realized with a stab of horror, he would a woman. A nasal whine cut off any attempt at violence.

 

"Arty," Laverne called from up the line, "is everything okay?"

 

"Yeah. I'm just meeting my ushers," Arturo said back, in a deep voice.

 

"Boys, be nice."

 

Lenny tried to meet her eyes, tell her he'd never do anything to ruin tomorrow for her, but she had already turned away and was gabbing to Shirley about the bridesmaid's dresses.

 

That night, he tossed and turned in a lonely bed, replaying the dinner in his mind. There was something dark, unsettling in Arturo that made Lenny worry for Laverne's safety. He told himself to quit thinking about it, that Laverne had dated gang members and that she just loved dangerous guys and that Arturo was a soldier and thus a nice guy, but he kept coming back to those cold eyes and that kung-fu grip. Something was wrong, it was his job to fix things with her when they went wrong...

 

But he'd promised not to ruin the wedding, and when Lenny Kosnowski made a promise, he stuck to it.

 

At the reception, he picked at his food - everything but the aforementioned cake - and danced with several bridesmaids, including a very pregnant Shirley Feeney-Meaney. He wanted desperately to just go back to Laurel Vista and bury his head under a pillow until it was morning, but luck - and Squiggy's interest in the newly divorced Eleanor Steffeneck - kept him sitting at his table staring into the flame of the centerpiece candles.

 

At last, Laverne came to his table and patted him on the shoulder. "Wanna dance?"

 

She had never asked him before. It was as if they had been transported back to Wilke Junior and she was still the prettiest girl in school and him the biggest dork. Stiffly, he got up...then tripped over himself and landed in her arms.

 

"It's all right, Arty," she said - Lenny looked over his shoulder to see Arturo advancing on him. "Come on," she said to Lenny, patient as a mother with a misbehaving toddler. She led him out to the middle of the floor, placed his left hand on her waist, and led him into a slow box-step as Connie Francis sang "It's The End of The World."

 

Connie was right, Lenny thought. It was over. The woman he held in his arms didn't want him and never would. That was why he was so wary of Arturo Spirito's presence - he was jealous, and his jealousy was unfair to Laverne.

 

He spoke her name again, needing to find the words that would release her.

 

She sighed. "Len, Len, Len," she sighed, cupping his cheek. "I know me and Arty happened kinda sudden." Laverne squeezed his hands. "He's so nice - he'll be a wonderful dad. And whenever he kisses me, I tingle all over."

 

"Goosebumps?"

 

"Huh?"

 

Lenny remembered Shirley's story about Laverne and her goosebumps - the reason why Laverne had never married Sal Malina. "Does he give you goosebumps?"

 

Laverne gave him a small, confused smile and glared over her shoulder at Shirley. "I never notice."

 

Wow, Lenny thought, but the word didn't come to his lips. She drew him close to her as the song ended. "I know you're scared for me 'cause I'm gonna have to go to Washington alone and I ain't known Arty for real long, but I'm so happy. This is the happiest I ever been in my whole life. Can you be happy for me, Lenny?"

 

She had used the word "happy" three times in three seconds, but the emotion never showed up in her eyes. He looked into them and said the hardest words he'd ever spoken. "Uh huh."

 

She patted his cheek. "I hope some nice girl comes along and sweeps you off your feet one day, Lenny Kosnowski, 'cause I love you."

 

The words made his heart flutter violently, but Lenny didn't need to hear her say that she loved him "as a friend". He knew. He understood.

 

After the fine staff at Ma's Dinner Hall kicked them out, Lenny and Squiggy ambled over to their home away from home - the red light district. They started doing boilermakers and long island iced teas, getting nicely blitzed at the Purple Hippo as they tossed half their pay down the g-string of a curvy blonde named Ginger. Toward the break of dawn, they staggered out of the place with a couple of cocktail waitresses.

 

Lenny couldn't recall what his looked like once he sobered up, but he remembered an overbite and dark green eyes and soft little hands unbuttoning his fly. His next clear memory was of lying stark naked on top of the girl, drooling into her ear while he caught his breath.

 

"That was good, tiger," she whispered in a British accent, watching Squiggy mate vigorously with her friend on the floor, "But who's Laverne?"

 

***

 

Lenny presses five dollars into his daughter's palm, and she pecks him affectionately on his cheek. She turns. "Two times around," she tells the ride operator, a short man in an Edwardian striped shirt, black pants, fake handlebar mustache and straw hat. Her father gives the man a sympathetic smile, one the stranger returns, if a bit forcedly. He would rather be anywhere than in Hyannis broiling his ass off in a heavy costume, and Lenny knew it.

 

"Daddy! Do you want the lion or the seahorse?"

 

He climbs up onto the large, ornate carousel and tries to choose between the delicately painted, gold-trimmed figures. "This one," he says, and wraps his hands around the golden pole of the green sea lion, straddling it.

 

His daughter puts distance between them, sitting two rows in front and to the left of him, on the back of a white pony with flaring nostrils, a red, yellow and green-painted saddle, and a black mane. She pushes back her own mane - heavy, long, blonde, and curled - and pushes her aviator glasses from her forehead to block the glare of the setting sun. His wife says she's getting into 'that phase'; the point where fashion and boys are more appealing than Barbie dolls, but Lenny doesn't notice it. Sometimes, he hears her talking to her stuffed dog in the middle of the night - LaLa, the one-eyed tail-free gray poodle Shirley bought when she was born. The only signs pointing to her impending adulthood seem to be her preoccupation with her hair, which she refuses to cut and had begun curling at the start of seventh grade.

 

Then, as if for the first time, he sees the long, rangy dangle of her legs and the bright neon pink of her tank top and feels a familiar hint of worry. Childish things may not be behind her, but the girl's body's beginning the painful trek toward adulthood. Lenny's already resigned himself to his part in her future - the examination of an onslaught of boys more ungainly than he, the wedding, the grandchildren at his knee. Bad things and good, rolled up together like a burrito.

 

If that's what she really wants, he thinks, seeing two women walking by, hand-in-hand, enthralled.

 

The carousel begins to whirl - organ music pumped in from above, as the seahorse begins to pump itself up and down, lifting him high and letting him down. His daughter shrieks "Here we go!" as if she's on the scariest of roller coasters.

 

A wise person once told Lenny that carousels are a great metaphor for life. But most up-and-down things usually are.

 

***

 

Fifteen years before.

 

***

 

"D'you hear? Laverne's back in town."

 

The words hurt Lenny less and less each time Squiggy said them. He squared his hips and lined the tip of his stick to the ball. "Yeah? Did she bring Arturo?"

 

"Big Arturo or Little Arturo?"

 

Lenny rolled his eyes, for once exasperated by Squiggy's exacting nature. "Little. You know me and Big don't get along." Truthfully, Lenny hadn't spoken to Laverne since she called him from the hospital with news of little Arturo's birth, and had no contact with Big Arturo since the wedding.

 

"Yeah, the kid's with her."

 

"Where they staying?"

 

"At Jay's trailer with him and Missus B."

 

"Why're they doing that? Couldn't they get a room somewhere? Aww! There's a burlesque convention in town and you didn't tell me!"

 

"Nah, she ain't just in town for a little visit," Squiggy leaned in conspiratorially. "She and Big Arturo ain't together no more."

 

Lenny tried to pick his jaw off of the table before it ruined his perfect run. "What? Who says?"

 

"Wanda."

 

"Wanda Mizurski? The one who's a waitress at Cowboy Bills'?"

 

"Yup. When I went by for supper and our usual morning hello grope, she said Laverne came in a couple of hours before with a little baby and she ain't wearing her ring."

 

A spark of foolish hope leapt up in Lenny's chest - before he could tell himself 'no', he slammed down the rest of his beer. "Hey, I'm gonna cut tonight short..."

 

Squiggy's posture became rigid. "Oh no, Leonard Kosnowski! I ain't lettin' you run over there like some Sir Garlichead on a white steed!"

 

"I ain't trying to be like Sir Garlichead!"

 

"Then why're you in such a hurry to see her? What's wrong with tomorrow?"

 

Lenny squirmed under Squiggy's intense gaze. "I wanna meet the kid."

 

"Since when do you care about little kids? You didn't even like yourself when you was a tot!"

 

"I dunno - I just wanna see..."

 

Squiggy's eyes brightened. "You wanna see if motherhood's turned Laverne's mountains into craters? Okay- just don't get all girly on me and start writin' songs for her again." He let Lenny pass, watched him pick up his denim jacket from the edge of the table and don it. "You taking the truck?"

 

"Yup. Can you make it back all right?"

 

"Sure," Squiggy replied, turning back to the game, hitting his seven into his five and sinking the ball home. Ruining Lenny's perfect setup for him.

 

Lenny soon found himself alone, driving up the Pacific Coast Highway and sneaking glimpses of himself in the rear view every few minutes, just to see if everything was as he'd left it. Not much had really changed in the year since Laverne had left California to move to McCord Air force Base in Washington State with Arturo. For Lenny, it was as if time had stood still, discounting his living arrangements - he and Squiggy had taken over Laverne and Shirley's old unit in the Laurel Vista building. Squiggy had rationalized that two bachelors such as themselves could afford the new, spacious digs. "I can entertain my broads upstairs and you can bang yours downstairs," he'd announced happily. It was a fine arrangement, or would have been, if Squiggy hadn't landed on an exciting new business opportunity for them - a moth breeding business. What had once been Laverne and Shirley's bedroom soon became a moth hatchery, and the boys ended up spending most nights in the living room, sleeping together on their fold-out couch. It was a good thing that girls had been the last thing on Lenny's mind for eons. Most of his attentions were focused on Squignowski - someone needed to think of the business while Squiggy embarked on his latest get-rich-quick scheme, and it was Lenny's job to make it thrive. Soon, they had a child singer of exquisite talent under contract, a dog act and two clowns, and they were all fairly talented and were in some degree of demand at parties. Lenny was the one handling the practicalities of the business while Squiggy applied his charm in liberal daubs to prospective clients and booking agents. He was the skeleton of Squignowski - Squiggy was the pretty face, that was how it worked, had always worked.

 

Nothing had changed, Lenny realized for the millionth time. The only thing he'd been able to prove to himself in twelve months was that he could grow a pretty thick beard in a year's time. She had outlived him by a huge margin - she'd had a baby and was getting a divorce, and he'd never even managed to get to the ring stage with a girl.

 

He pulled into the Shining Pines Trailer Court a little past eight at night and it was nearly deserted. Orange lights glowed in from the windows of each motor coach - TVs flickering and the mixed scent of dinners wafting from open windows. The DeFazio plot stood at the foot of a hill, on rocky, sandy terrain, the land hemmed in by two large families and their children's swing sets. Lenny parked himself under a shade elm and scanned the dark trailer for a sign of life.

 

He found it in the gentle rocking motion of a thin, womanly frame, sitting on an olive-and-maroon swing set near the edge of the DeFazio property. He knew who it was. He would have recognized her with both eyes shut.

 

"Laverne?"

 

Her head came up - the line of her nose visible suddenly and her huge eyes reflecting in the light. She smiled, stood up, walked to him.

 

If he hadn't changed, she'd done so. Like a butterfly emerging from a cocoon, Laverne's once-gawky young body had gained a slight curve - her breasts and hips slightly thicker, softer-looking. She had finally managed to grow out her hair, and it hung in dark red curls around her shoulders, curtaining a pink poncho.

 

She embraced him and he marveled again at the soft brush of her breasts and the strength of her right arm. "Lenny," she murmured, her voice caressing his name, making his skin tingle. She stepped back and caressed his cheek. "You grew a beard?"

 

He touched his own cheek - the same place she had touched him. "You like it?"

 

A soft whimper came from between them - from beneath her poncho. She pushed it aside, revealing an infant, dark-haired, soft-faced, arms flailing in search of a pacifier dropped.

 

"Hey, little Arty," Lenny greeted softly. He found the pacifier on the baby's chest and pushed it between soft lips. Lenny was momentarily surprised by the strong suction. He looked up to remark on it to Laverne, but she had gone pale.

 

"Please don't call him Arty," Laverne said softly. "I'm callin' him Aidan now."

 

Confusion marred Lenny's features. "He's cute. Looks like his pop...."

 

Her skin went even whiter. "Really?" her voice shook a little as she pulled the baby closer to her breast. "I think he looks like my Pop."

 

Lenny squinted in the darkness and guessed so - the swarthy features were Italian for sure but indeterminate in source. "Can I hold him?" he wondered.

 

Laverne smiled, her thin lips disappearing in a pained way. "Okay." She gently placed the baby in his arms, arranging the dark head against the fold of Lenny's left elbow. He looked down into a pair of dark eyes and a curious little mouth, the end of the pacifier bobbing away. He smiled; the baby smiled back around the hunk of rubber and made Lenny's insides quake like Jell-O.

 

"He's cute," he repeated himself, for want of anything new to say.

 

"I guess so," Laverne said, sounding tired and far away. She sat against the bumper of his ice cream truck, watching him with her son.

 

Lenny played with the baby's pudgy hand. "I'm sorry about you and Arturo," he said, without meeting her eyes.

 

She stiffened visibly. "Who told you about us breaking up?"

 

He decided to cover up Squiggy's faux pas. "You ain't wearing your ring."

 

Self-consciously, she looked at her left finger, which had so recently been uncovered it sported a white tan line. "I don't wanna talk about Arturo," she pled, hiding her hand against the pink shawl which had once covered Aidan's romper-clad body.

 

Lenny winced, as if she had bitten him. "Okay. Sorry."

 

"Don't be, Len. I'm taking my troubles out on you," she reached out for the baby and he gave the infant back. For minutes she looked down into the child's little face and said nothing to her guest.

 

Impulsively, he said, "Do you got someplace to stay?"

 

Something unknown flickered in her eyes. "My Pop's putting me up."

 

"Oh," he said quietly. Then the words came out in a rush, unbidden. "'Cause I was going to ask you if you wanna come stay with me and Squig."

 

"You'd do that for me?" she sounded surprised.

 

"Sure," he stuffed his hands into his pockets. "This ain't no place for the little guy to grow up. Frank don't got nothing in the back yard for him. A kid needs someplace to play, and me and Squig've got more toys than we know what to do with."

 

She laughed - that bark of a nasal laugh that he loved. "He don't even crawl yet."

 

"Yeah, but he will, and you're gonna want playground when he does. We never had a one when we was kids, remember?"

 

"Why do you think I care? You was the one who always wanted one." She didn't say out loud that it was he who always dreamed of living in a little house where he could see the stars, have a swing set and a dog. The closest he ever came to having a living pet was that was the mouse living in the wall of his tenement apartment.

 

He lowered his chin, trying to capture her eyes with his. When she finally gave in and looked at him, he saw the difference in her - sadness, wideness, indefinable change. "Please Laverne?" he wheedled.

 

She held the gaze for a little while longer, then sighed, shifted her shoulders, and turned around, walking back to the trailer. "I gotta get my diaper bag and stroller. Can you wait?"

 

He nodded and faded back into the darkness. Shifting, the baby peeped at him over her shoulder the whole way, grave dark eyes watching him, as if he didn't trust any man over four feet tall.

 

Lenny leaned back against the bumper, looking up into a sky bathed in moonlight. The stars winked back at him, tauntingly. What the hell had he just promised?

 

 

****

 

"Eew, pecans."

 

Lenny raises one shaggy brow before popping a piece of pecan-chocolate fudge into his mouth. "It's good," he proclaims, chewing noisily.

 

"Daddy, don't chew with your mouth open," she whines.

 

"I ain't chewin' with my mouth open!"

 

She winces back from him, sprawling dramatically against the glass candy case, dodging pecan crumbs. "You're spraying!"

 

He swallows. "I am not!"

 

She rolls her eyes, moving back into place and resting both palms against the case while looking down. "Hmm...bubble gum fudge or strawberry?"

 

Lenny licks his lips. "No more for me."

 

"What would mom want?"

 

"Coffee."

 

She sighs, looking up and pasting on a big smile for the gawky, zit-faced brunette standing behind the counter in his pinstriped shirt. "One fourth of a pound of strawberry fudge and one fourth of a pound of coffee fudge."

 

He kid nods, the paper hat on his head dipping rakishly as he pulls up slices of the creamy treat from wax paper-covered tin pans. His face is familiar - does his family own the shop? Lenny tries to remember, but memory is supplanted by the moment, as he sees Aidan standing further up the shop staring lustily at a stack of lollipops - and the girl stacking them in too-tight jeans.

 

With purpose, Lenny strides up to the teenager and pokes him on his tee-shirt-clad shoulder; the figure spins around, his dark eyes snapping and a rude comment dying on his lips.

 

"Hey," says Aidan.

 

"Hey yourself," Lenny counters, crossing arms over his chest. "Your mom know about that?"

 

"What?"

 

"That!" Lenny points to Aidan's head, which that morning had sported a mullet, and now is combed up into a gell - filled faux-hawk with a purple stripe.

 

"Ohh..." he shuffles his feet. "Well, yanno Rachel? Rachel Meaney?"

 

Lenny rolls his eyes. "Yeah, Walter and Shirley's kid, the one who's two years older than you." he replies, speaking in a slow, syrupy drawl as if to someone infinitely slower than he.

 

"Yeah, and she's going to cosmetology school?" Lenny nods. "Well, she needed someone to practice on for her final, 'cause she can only use her dummy head once..."

 

"So you said she could practice on you?"

 

Aidan grins, his winning Laverne grin. "Yup."

 

Lenny can't resist smiling back - that's just the sort of sucker's bet a Kosnowski would fall for, and Aidan is a Kosnowski, if not by blood. The fun ends when an unpleasant thought crosses Lenny's mind and he utters it. "You didn't try to get something off of her....did you?"

 

Aidan sighs dramatically, that superior I-know-everything-dad noise. Lenny remembers the last time he used it was when he and his wife had refused him permission to see Dawn of the Dead at the Tri-Boro. Aidan had said those words he dreaded most - five barbed contractions: "You're not my real father." Lenny had cried for five hours after those words were spoken, and Aidan had felt so guilty about saying them that they had spent the entirety of the next day at a Godzilla Monster Marathon at the Avon. They had told Aidan that his father had been a military man, but nothing much else about Arturo. "Nah. Rachel's saving it for mister right." Aidan scoffs, as if there could ever be such a thing for the unattainable Rachel Meaney. "But it don't hurt to be nice."

 

A wave of relief crashes over Lenny. "Nah, it don't hurt to be nice." He looks this kid up and down and is once more stricken by how much he resembles his younger self in motion and deed - all gawk and false arrogance. "Your mom in here?"

 

"Nah, she's taking pictures with Aunt Shirley on the big pink whale up the street."

 

Pink whale? It takes Lenny a moment to remember the ubiquitous decorations sprinkled all over Hyannis - large whales, painted by local celebrities and cemented to the sidewalk. They have goofy pictures of themselves taken by the whales every year: Lenny making faces against a whale head, Laverne slung over the back of another, posed dramatically like a model.

 

"Dad? You're doing it again!"

 

"Huh? Sorry," he picks up a lollipop and carries it decisively back into the main body of the shop. "You had enough independence yet?"

 

Aidan smirks. "Until I get my license, yup," he shuffles behind Lenny, unobtrusive, like the wallpaper. Like himself.

 

He's a good listener, Lenny thinks to himself. And being a good listener was yet another Kosnowski trait he was proud of having passed down through deed, not genetics.

 

 

***

 

Fourteen years before

 

 

***

 

"You going out with Laverne again?"

 

Lenny sighed dramatically, carefully combing his beard with a soft, old toothbrush and barely looking up at Squiggy. "We don't go out, we just..."

 

"Hang around like sheets in the wind."

 

Lenny shook his head and laughed. "I guess, Squig."

 

Abruptly, he flapped into motion, stamping his way out of the room and over to the front door. "I'll tell Inga she's gotta find another guy to rub Svetlana's corns! But mark my words, Lenny, I ain't gonna come running when you start cryin' that you need someone to fix your zipper!"

 

Lenny shook his head as the little guy departed, promising himself he'd make it up to him when he could. With unseemly speed, his thoughts turned back to Laverne, and their movie "date" scheduled for the evening.

 

There was no one huge defining moment that Lenny marked as the major turning point in their long friendship - the little drips of change along the way only registered as tremors to his memory. Her stay in his apartment had been a temporary one - as soon as she had landed a job with the Faccinelli Oyster Cannery, she moved herself and the baby into Carmine's old apartment across the hallway. Lenny had offered her the old place - behind Squiggy's back, which his friend never did find out about - but Laverne had turned him down. "This is your place now, Len," she said. "Sides, we should always live across the hall from each other. For good luck."

 

Lenny supposed so - things were better for her than they ever had been when she lived with Shirley. In the space of four months she moved from canning to labeling and then to packing, the last of which she considered the easiest job she had ever had and the best. It paid a little better, too, but even though she had extra money she never would leave Aiden with anyone other than Missus Babbish, Squiggy or himself. Why she trusted Squiggy with the kid he didn't know - his friend used the kid as an audience for his inordinately bad stand-up comedy routine - one so bad that even Lenny recognized its awfulness.

 

In the past, Lenny had always hung out with Laverne when she didn't have a date or he wasn't too busy. The old pattern resumed now, and gradually they began doing things together with a greater frequency than they ever had before - taking long walks during their lunch breaks, going to the beach, to movies, out dancing. The amount of time they spent together put Squiggy on guard. "She's tryin' to get a free lunch out of you," he said grumpily over the millionth beer and round of pool they'd shared at the Jabba Hutt. Lenny had no answer for him - maybe she was using him, but it was better than being alone while Squiggy was off squiring his latest conquest.

 

But - this thought had come to him more recently - maybe it didn't have anything at all to do with him. Maybe it had to do with that motherfucker Arturo Spirito, and whatever had happened to Laverne in the brief year they'd been married.

 

Lenny knew - she didn't have to tell him that - Arturo had done something obscene, or cruel, or frightening to make her leave him. It had to be serious, very serious, for her not to stay in Washington and try to work things out and do exactly what she vowed she'd never do - get divorced. He worked on the facts alone like Sherlock Holmes - remembering how she went white as a ghost whenever someone mentioned her husband offhandedly, or called the baby "Arty" by mistake. There were little changes in her behavior - anxiety about leaving Aidan with a babysitter, even at daycare. Her spirit had become loudly opinionated and forceful, and she was prone to flashes of anger that were sharper than the norm, yet she withdrew at any sign of violence.

 

The most startling change he had discovered by complete accident. One Saturday he went looking for his copy of the Blue Hawaii soundtrack and burst into her apartment as he always did - unannounced. That he'd accidentally caught her nursing Aiden was enough of a start to Lenny - not even the sight of her exposed breasts, rounded with a new ripeness, drew his attention. It was a tattoo - a huge garland of roses draped from her shoulder and down across her collarbone, ending where her breasts cleaved in two. He had stared open-mouthed at her chest even as she yelled at him to get out. A grandfather clock sailing by his ear managed to make Lenny move, but the image hadn't left his mind. Laverne was a baby about pain. Why would she get a tattoo?

 

It all came out as most things do - innocuously, and that very night. Aiden had been with Missus Babbish - the last time she would see the baby before leaving Frank for a bullfighter, Lenny recalled - , Squiggy with Inga, and Lenny and Laverne had been combing through the movie section looking for a show to see.

 

"How about 'Night of the Living Dead'?" Lenny asked.

 

She considered it. "Nah. Too gory."

 

He frowned. "I thought you love gory." The invisible curtain fell down again, obscuring her real emotions, and Lenny was in no mood to let her retreat. "What's wrong with you, Vernie?"

 

"Nothing."

 

He put down the paper and reached for her, his hand meeting hers on the arm of his old recliner. "I know something's wrong."

 

She tried to avoid his eyes, but they pinned her down. Laverne spoke lightly. "I've had enough of monsters. They don't scare me no more."

 

Lenny moved off of the couch, kneeling in front of her. "You can tell me," he said. "I won't tell no one, I promise." Her green eyes were reflective, shiny, as she bent forward in the chair, and she cupped his face tenderly between her hands.

 

The kiss took him by complete surprise.

 

While her mouth enraptured his, her hands climbed downward restlessly, trying to pull off his shirt, and that so shocked Lenny that his brain refused to surrender to its animal impulses. He pulled out of her grip and landed flat on his rear end, staring up at her. "What're you doing?"

 

She stared back with her huge green eyes, looking as startled as he felt. "I wanted to shut you up," she declared, voice shaking. "That was the quickest way."

 

Lenny felt a chill race through him - awful, like being dumped naked into the Arctic. "So, we're back to this."

 

"Huh?"

 

He stood up. "Squig was right! All the months we spent together, walking, going to the movies - I thought we was getting close! I thought we was real friends - well, you ain't my friend! You don't wanna be close to me - you wanna free lunch!"

 

She shuddered, cowering back from him a little. "Shut up!"

 

"The Laverne I know wasn't afraid of no one! She'd do more than tell someone to shut up, she'd make 'em shut up!"

 

The flash of anger and the slap that bruised his cheek were satisfyingly reminiscent of the real Laverne DeFazio. She hit him twice more, hard, as if she were battling Godzilla, and Lenny stood still, taking her blows, feeling them strike his skin and turn it purple.

 

Finally, the physical pain stopped. He bit his trembling bottom lip, refusing to cry, to allow the shake building in his chest to come out in words or sounds. He looked into her eyes and found himself drowned in her store of emotional suffering. "I don't want nothing from you, Leonard Kosnowski!" she screamed like a child, and stomped out of his apartment.

 

Lenny spent the night brooding and was barely aware of Squiggy entering the appartment and flopping down beside him on the sofa bed. As his best friend snored away, Lenny remained aware only of the hurt. God, it hurt, he thought, to get that close to Laverne time after time, only to have her use his affection for her as a pretext to getting what she needed - silence, a moved couch, a bought plant, whatever suited her at the time. But the more he thought, the more the aching in his head was trumped by the ache of his heart. He was wrong - she was no tease. She had never led him on. The conflict he'd felt in her soft body, seen in her green eyes, spoke of a thousand different things at once, but not maliciousness. Only a darkness that he could not shine a light into, not without her help, not until he knew the magic word. He knew he needed her to say what was wrong before the monster she swore she wasn't afraid of ate her up.

 

That morning, he rose with a new determination. It was determination that faded into horror when he saw a note taped to the door of her apartment.

 

"For Missus Babbish" was scribbled on the outside of the envelope. Lenny tore it carelessly open, his eyes stumbling over the bigger words, but their meaning fully evident.

 

"Edna,

 

You don't have to worry about looking after Aiden for the next month, I'm taking him away on summer vacation. I ain't gonna be home 'til the third of next month, so please bring in my mail, and keep an eye on..." that was crossed out, but Lenny could read it anyway, "tell the boys not to watch my TV. If you need to know where we are, Shirl has my number. It's 555...."

 

Lenny crumbled the note in his fist. Typical Laverne, running away just when something scary's gonna happen. Lenny turned and stomped back into the apartment, picking up the phone and dialing Shirley Feeney-Meaney's number.

 

It picked up on the second ring.

 

"Hello?"

 

"Shirley."

 

"Leonard?" a long silence. He worried that she would disconnect the call. A rattle, and words spoken in a soft tone. "I should hang up on you."

 

"Don't, please don't, I'm sorry I made Laverne mad..."

 

"You should be sorry! If you knew what she's been through..."

 

"She won't tell me what she's been through - that's why we fought."

 

A long silence. "You wouldn't lie to me about that, Leonard?"

 

"Never."

 

The world seemed to make a full revolution on its axis before she said, "she's here with us, at our summer house in Hyannis, Massachusetts."

 

 

***

 

"Daddy! Mara and Casey are going for a snow cone. Can I go, too?"

 

Lenny's daughter had been communing with a group of loose-limbed, long-legged teenagers at the foot of the steps leading into Kandy Kitchen, while he chatted with his son and ignored the giggling of the younger girls. He takes a gander at the group, and sees a lobe with six earrings and green hair and immediately cancels out the notion of his child going anywhere with the strangers. "Honey, they look too old for you."

 

"Daddy, they're my age," she sighs. In the little shake of her shoulders and impatience of the foot, she is her mother's child.

 

"You're too young. No."

 

"DADDY."

 

"Your mom's waiting for us," he points out, smiling apologetically to the mean-faced, snickering girls.

 

"Dad..." Aidan can see the explosion coming, but his father never can.

 

"Come on," he insists, dragging them both down the street, toward the flock of whales, their Aunt Shirley, their mother.

 

His daughter shocks him by yanking her hand out of his. "Stop it!" she whines. "You always act like I'm a little baby, like I'm too young to take care of myself and I don't know what to do! Everyone else I know gets to stay home alone, they don't have to run around with their daddy all day like I do! Why can't I make my own mistakes? You make mistakes! Look at that dumb tattoo!" she pointed at his forearm.

 

He covered his left forearm protectively with splayed fingers. "This tattoo," he said, "ain't stupid."

 

"I don't wanna go to the fireworks - I wanna hang out with those..." she turns around to run back to them, but the teenagers had disappeared. "You scared them away!" she whines.

 

Lenny feels a horrible stab of fear, the premonition of a future loss - the fact of her willfulness rolling in on him, the hugeness of her oversensitive heart pulsing on her sleeve for everyone to see, the overwhelming need to be popular with strangers making her a fool. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe she's really just like me.

 

"Maybe you're the one who scared them away, shorty," retorts Aidan.

 

She shoves him with all of her strength. "Fuck off!"

 

"Stop it," Lenny instructs, trying to sound like a grown up. They're approaching the end of the curb, within spitting distance of their goal.

 

"Mommy!"

 

"Mom!"

 

A pair of green eyes lock onto his, and suddenly the children disappear.

 

 

***

 

He drove for a week straight. Did he sleep? Did he eat? He doesn't recall. The sensations are what he remembers - the change in atmosphere and air as he passed through the desserts and into the cornfields, the chill of the breeze as he crossed the Brooklyn Bridge. He knows he must have slept, eaten, used some gas station bathrooms, seen things he hadn't seen on the first time across the country, but his mind was a singular ball of nerves repeating her name over and over again without end.

 

Immediately, he disliked the tony atmosphere of Hyannis - everything was clean, overly-manicured, too perfect. Maybe that was a side-effect of it being The Fourth Of July - every bug must be swept underground for the tourists. The Meaney cottage was located far off the main drag, on a sandy cove by a wide swath of beach, dotted with running, laughing children. He looked for her, didn't find her, walked up the silt pathway and knocked on the door.

 

It was unlocked. Alarmingly, the house was empty.

 

Aimlessly, Lenny began to roam about - seeing Shirley and Doctor Meaney and the children staring back at him with their wide, blank eyes. Everything was carpeted and upholstered in pink and yellow - even the bathroom. In desperation, the final door he tried was the guest bedroom.

 

She sat by the window in a rocking chair, looking elderly at twenty-nine. The sight of him made her rise from her seat.

 

"I'm sorry," he said.

 

"You shaved," she replied.

 

He touched his cheek, recently cut, recently shaven in one of those unmemorable bathrooms and felt the yellow of his bruised skin. "Is Aiden okay?"

 

"He's fine," she took a step toward him. "Len, I wasn't being nice for all these months just to take advantage of you."

 

He laughed. "I know, Vernie. It was a dumb thing to say..."

 

"Yeah," she laughed, and when he pouted she reached out and held him. "It was all me. I've been havin' a real hard time getting used to being single again."

 

"Are you ready to tell me what happened?"

 

She sat down tiredly on the bed, patting a spot beside her. "It's not a pretty story," she said.

 

"Didn't think it was."

 

She looked away from his unwavering gaze. "It was two weeks into my marriage. I was cleaning out one of Arty-Arturo's closets, so I could put some of my clothes away. I found a shoebox he had hidden under a big pile of underwear. So I sat there and started wondering what was in there, what he'd wanna hide from me. So I pulled it open and found...." she gulped. "I found all of these pictures, Len. Pictures of naked girls."

 

"He had pictures of old girlfriends?" She shook her head wildly. He gave her a look of blank confusion, and so she pressed on.

 

"I showed them to Arty and he said they were just old girlfriends - he liked them young but they eighteen or a little older, he said - dated for looks and married for love, he said. I tried to pretend it didn't bother me. A couple of weeks later I found out about the baby..." she looked behind her shoulder and out the window, and Lenny saw Shirley playing with Aiden and her brood of two in the sand. "I was so happy. Arty seemed so happy," she began to play with the hem of her skirt, folding and unfolding it. "I kept finding things - magazines hidden under mattresses and stuff like that. I thought it was just my mind, yanno - they were all wearing make-up and heels, maybe they were women who just looked young..."

 

A sickening knot formed in Lenny's stomach - if he didn't know what was coming, he'd begun to sense and fear its denouement.

 

"Everything was fine for awhile, up until Aiden was born. By then we had a next-door neighbor - a little girl. She was only twelve, and her name was Amelia, she had straight black hair and eyes that were purple - purple, Len, I swear! Every morning I'd go out and pull weeds in my violet patch and she'd be on her front lawn, playing with her Barbie Dream House. Her pop was a no-good drunk, always in and out of jail, so she was living with her grandparents while he tried to get himself together. Arty noticed her riding her bike on the sidewalk one day and said that maybe we should have her watch the baby during the afternoon, 'cause he said I looked tired. And I was tired, Len, so tired, so I said it sounded okay to me. She started watching Aiden every afternoon while I went to see my neighbors or did the shopping or the laundry..."

 

Lenny didn't understand why she lingered so on the babysitter, but he continued to listen. Her eyes danced away again, rested on her lap. "One Saturday, I went to get my hair done. It was a cut and wash, and I got finished a lot faster than I thought. You know how I always wanted to get my hair done at a real nice beauty parlor?" her voice cracked, "I got home an hour early. The house looked empty at first. I was so mad at Amelia, 'cause it was cold out and she didn't know where I kept Aidan's sweaters. I was getting ready to yell out the window for her grandmother when I heard this moan coming from the bedroom..."

 

He felt the blood drain out of his face.

 

"I thought Arty was home, maybe his CO told him to come back early, that he was watching an old movie on the set we had in there. So I decided to surprise him with my new hair and my Scanty Panties..." a shudder wracked her body, she closed her eyes. "I threw open the bedroom door, sorta 'ta-da', and there he was..." a deep sob wracked her body. "He was on top of Amelia. Raping her."

 

"Jesus God," Lenny blurted out. He had thought Arty was no good, but he had worried Laverne would be abused - not this, never this...

 

"He had his hand over her mouth, and there was blood - blood on his hands, on my pillow. She was biting his hand and he was strangling her, trying to get her to keep quiet so I wouldn't come in..." Laverne took a deep breath. "I turned around and ran, trying to find where Aiden was, trying to get away. I knew I had to save Amelia but I couldn't let the baby stay there, couldn't risk him doing something to Aidan - the baby was my life, Lenny...I found him alone in the kitchen, right there in the supply closet like a pile of garbage! His diaper was wet and he was crying..." she broke down, allowed him to comfort her, then continued, "I had the baby, I was running for the door - I heard Amelia screaming, and Arty saying, "I can't let you talk, I can't let you talk..." She pulled down her top, showing him the rose tattoo. Silently, Laverne drew his hand to her collarbone. He felt the rise of a scar, running the length of the thorny green vine as she drew his finger downward, reading the Braille of her body. "He knew if I got to one of the neighbors his life would be over, and so would his job with the service. That meant more to him than anything." A far-away look. "He grabbed me when I hit the back step. Had a big butcher knife from the top drawer." She cleared her throat, in a vain attempt to stop her tears. "Knocked me down - boobs up, thank God, so Aiden landed on my belly. Started cutting me, tried to slit my throat, missed, went down across like that... The doctor said if he had gone any deeper, he would have hit my ju...my big vain....one cut and it would've been curtains for me, Len..."

 

His embrace nearly knocked her back to the mattress. For what seemed like years, he cried and she held him, and he rubbed his face against her dark red hair, rocking animalistically against her, seeking human comfort and proof that the world was not a wicked place. "Hey, I'm gonna need you to hold me up soon," Laverne said.

 

Lenny pulled himself slightly away, dashing away his tears. "Poor you! Poor Aiden! That poor little girl! She was just a baby!"

 

"A baby, but a strong girl. While I was gettin' cut up, Amelia was looking for something to hit Arturo with. She found that cast-iron skillet - thanks for the wedding present, by the way - and bashed him over the head with it."

 

Lenny grinned. "Good!"

 

"He was only knocked out," Laverne said, "But he was out of it long enough for me to tie him up with some clothesline rope and call the cops. All that time we spent playing cowboys and Indians didn't go to waste, either," she laughed. "They took his magazines and his pictures, but they couldn't promise me he'd go to prision. I told Amelia I'd do whatever I needed to do for her, to keep her safe. They took us both to the hospital to get examined," Laverne bit her lower lip. "I found out later that, from the cop who took my statement, that Arturo was dead."

 

"Amelia killed him?"

 

She shook her head. "He woke up in the paddy wagon. They put him in the drunk tank 'cause of overcrowding. Guess who was in there?"

 

"Amelia's dad?"

 

"Uh huh," she looked out into space. "He was bragging out loud about what he did, and Amelia's purple eyes gave him away. You know you can kill someone with a couple of shoelaces?"

 

"Jesus," Lenny muttered, seeking supplication.

 

"I told Pop I was a widow," Laverne explained. "Made up something about a car accident killing Arty. Got the tattoo to cover up the scar. I sold everything that wasn't mine before the marriage, anything he touched, and I buried him in a pauper's grave. The only people I asked to come to the funeral were friends or family of his. Arty was town scum by then, so we had to do it quick and at night, and I had to lie to his poor mom that that was what he wanted. After that, I had Aidan's name changed. Everyone in my new neighborhood knew about what had gone on, so I couldn't stay there. If I lied enough, I knew I could come back to California and start again. The questions started when I came back to Pop's place unannounced. I buried Arturo so fast, took off my rings so fast, called his little namesake by a new name - Pop blamed me, told me that I wasn't mourning him like a widow should. He mourned my Mama for ten years and more, and he couldn't understand why I didn't feel the same. I can't tell him the truth, Len - you and Shirley are the only ones who know what happened."

 

"Your Pop don't even know what that asshole did to you?"

 

"No, please Len, please, let's keep it that way..." Her knuckles went white as she squeezed the material of her skirt. "It's my fault."

 

"Why?"

 

"I saw those pictures, the magazines, before he started hurting Amelia - 'cause I stuck my head in the sand. I coulda stopped it. All 'cause I followed my...yanno...instead of my heart."

 

"You followed your heart, baby. You're a good girl, Vernie. You don't think the worst about people."

 

"I should've," she said quietly. "If I listened to my heart..."

 

"What?"

 

She looked away. "It's stupid."

 

"What?"

 

"If I listened to my heart," she said, standing and then taking off her jeans and the already-lowered shirt, as his jaw dropped lower and lower, "I would've been with you years ago."

 

"What?" he blurted out.

 

She silently nodded her head. "It takes a long time for me to listen to my brain, Len. Sometimes I listen to my heart while my head's saying no. Sometimes everything in me says no, but I'll do whatever I want, just to piss someone off," she sat down on the bed in her little white panties and took his big hands in hers. "And sometimes," she said, leaning close to him, until he could feel her heat radiating over his body like a sunbeam, "My body and my heart want to be in love, but my brain tells me everyone's looking at us when you kiss me and it's really stupid to feel that way about someone who thinks Bolivia is a bowling joint." Lenny winced. She had his head between her palms, turning him gently toward her. "I never thought I'd feel this way about you, 'til we started spending all that time together in back in California. But it was there out of the blue, yanno - before I knew what was going on, I wanted to be with you every way I could think. Then you started pressing on me, trying to get me to tell you what was going on and I just couldn't tell someone else - I nearly wanted to die, telling Shirl about it. When I spilled everything to her she was sadder about it than me."

 

Lenny lowered his head. "We don't gotta do this, Vernie."

 

"Don't you want to?" her voice was almost childlike in its anticipation.

 

"I always wanted to," Lenny said quietly. "Always will. But if you're just doing this to shut me up or something..."

 

"It's been a year since I felt like a woman, Len," she said, her voice absent of its usual nasal bray. "If you ever did anything right, it was make me feel like a lady. I don't know if I'm any good, I faked it with Arturo, and he was my first. Maybe if I was better at it, he wouldn't've..."

 

"Don't say it," Lenny warned. "You're all woman, Vernie. Even when you wasn't doing it with anyone, you were."

 

She placed his hands on her shoulders.

 

Lenny's eyes widened at the implication of what she wanted to do. He didn't even have the wit to bite his palm. He just stared at her with over bright blue eyes in complete disbelief.

 

"Len," she said, her voice clear as a bell, "please."

 

Neither of them said the words 'make love to me' or 'fuck me' or 'take me'. There were no passionate declarations from the pages of a romance novel, no crude urgings cribbed from a dirty book. It simply happened - two imperfect bodies joining in union in time to nearby laughter, waves rolling on the shore. Her body felt softer than he remembered, softer than it ever had as it moved slowly beneath him in an odd rhythm. Lenny kept the pace, felt her dampen his palms, and heard her distant moaning as he proved to her she was anything but frigid with his lips and tongue. He tried to keep himself under control, touch her the way she deserved until her urgency broke his control. She mumbled something about being off the pill because she was nursing, and then there had barely been time to sheathe him in a rubber before she drew him down into the heavenly confines of her body. Lenny saw lightening flash behind his eyelids as the motions began. Then what he had dreamed of for years happened, though it was nothing like the fantasies that had lit his lonely nights and everything that he had wished for all at once.

 

At the end they had no strength, no control. He but followed her over the edge of the world and waited there for the world to stop spinning, his body to stop spasming into the rubber. His efforts were rewarded by the tremble of her flesh, the soft cry of her body, and then he didn't even have the will to crawl away from her, collapsing against her side and curling around her body protectively. They fell asleep curled like puppies, naked beneath Shirley's patchwork quilt, holding hands.

 

***

 

He woke with a start to a completely dark room and the sound of someone breathing beside his ear. It took him less than a second to realize it wasn't Squiggy, and the soft arms encircling his middle belonged to Laverne.

 

In the darkness, Lenny turned to see her lying there, her long arms draped loosely around him, elegant in sleep as she wasn't in the waking world

 

He stared into her face and tried to figure out what he was going to do. Had he taken advantage of this woman? This beautiful girl he had worshipped for his entire life?

 

Other thoughts pushed the important ones from his brain. It was hot inside, stiflingly so...His eyes fell to a small basin and pitcher by the nightable. He wanted nothing more than to make her feel good about herself again. Gently, he squirmed out of her embrace, went to the bathroom, discarded the rubber, and filled the basin with cold water, taking two washcloths from the linen closet and carrying them out with more caution than he'd ever exercised in his life.

 

She woke up when he gently began to stroke her with the towel. "Whatt're you don'?"

 

He didn't answer - just cleansed her gently, brushing her soft skin with the cloth, using it as an excuse to examine her body. When every part of her front glistened in the dim light, he towel-dried her carefully, and by the time he had finished she stretched out beneath him, like a big, satisfied cat. As a parting gesture, he kissed each blossom on her tattoo and crouched down beside her on the bed.

 

"That was nice. What was that for?" she asked.

 

"'Cause it's hot out," he lied. "There ain't any air conditioning in here." She gave him a wise look, and he melted. "I wanted to make you feel good."

 

"You did that, twice." he blushed at her declaration, and she moved her torso slowly back-and-forth. "You think that cooled me off?" she chuckled, and reached over, taking a book of matches and lighting a cranberry-colored oil-filled hurricane lamp sitting on the dresser. A soft orange glow filled the room and he blushed and tried to cover himself, but she pushed his hand aside, apprising all of him at once. "Leonard Kosnowski, you are a beautiful man," she informed him.

 

"Nahh," he said quietly.

 

"Yeah," she said.

 

"You're a beautiful woman, Laverne DeFazio," he retorted, then picked up the half-full basin of water and laid it on the bedstand so they wouldn't' spill it and ruin Shirley's percale sheets, and laid both washcloths beside it. Lenny sprawled beside her, then, to his surprise, she reached over the side of the bed and dipped the dry washcloth into the bin. "What're you doing?" he wondered.

 

"You oughta get cool too," she pointed out, straddling his body and gently stroking every part of him with her washcloth. To his surprise, her touch was tender, almost reverent. It brought up emotions he hadn't had in the longest time - feelings of being protected, cherished, loved.

 

As she dried his body, he admitted what had been burning in his heart for years. "I love you, Laverne. I always did."

 

The washcloth stopped moving. Her answer wasn't anything more than a kiss to his chest and the press of her flesh there, lulling him back to sleep.

 

***

 

A hissing, a pop, an explosion and a flash of light woke Lenny from deep sleep. Laverne instinctively clutched at him, her legs around his waist, frightened.

 

"It's okay," he said, kissing her forehead, pointing out the window. Another firecracker exploded against the skyline, flashing red and green brilliantly in the now-dark room.

 

"I forgot it's the Fourth of July," she said softly, resting her head against his chest once more.

 

For a painful minute, they lay in silence, listening to the boom-hiss of the fireworks.

 

"Vernie, what happens now?" he asked the wall.

 

Her voice was tiny, lonesome. "I dunno."

 

"Do you wanna go back to being friends again?" the idea shattered his soul, but he had to suggest it.

 

"We can't," she said plaintively.

 

It was the end of the world. "You hate me," he whispered.

 

"Lenny..."

 

He pushed away from her, sitting up. "You don't need me." He tried to crawl under the bed, but her arms surrounded him like a vise.

 

She followed, her hands were on his shoulder. "Who says I don't?"

 

Lenny looked at her with incredulity. "You survived the worst a guy can throw at a girl, Vernie. I wouldn't blame you if you never wanna be near anything in pants for the rest of your life. You earned it."

 

"I don't hate all men in the world, Len - just one, and he's in the ground," she rested her head against his shoulder, her hand going to his lap and stroking.

 

Lenny's brain devolved into nothingness - his body became turgid and moist, responding to her touch instantly. "But what can I give you that you don't already got?" he asked in a grave tone.

 

She straddled his lap. "Your smile every time we wake up together. That dumb joke you tell about the armadillo and the nun..."

 

"That's a good joke," Lenny protested, but she went on.

 

"A cup of coffee once a day. Your hands on my back in the middle of the night." She poised herself over him, her arms going around his neck. "Your ring. Your name. And," she lowered herself down around him, sheathing him in her unprotected warmth, "the one thing I don't want from no other guy in the world."

 

He thought to pull her off, but her body was so seductive and welcoming. "What?"

 

She grinned at him, her hips rocking slowly, teasingly. "A little girl."

 

He rolled her gently over, onto her back. He agreed with her decision in actions instead of words - his name, a ring, and a baby between them, a sweet little girl. "Okay. If we can call her Amelia."

 

She nodded her head, arms around his neck. "I love you, Lenny," she admitted, resting her head against his shoulder and allowing him to rock within her, slowly.

 

"I love you too." Whatever else he wanted to say - a speech remained in his heart - was cut off by the curious motion of her hips, which set him ablaze like a roman candle.

 

Then there was nothing but the bang of the fireworks and the squeak of the old bedstand.

 

 

***

 

 

"Aimee," Laverne says, handing her daughter a disposable camera, "take pictures. I need to send some to Auntie Amelia."

 

She sighs, "tuh, mom! She's a big time lawyer - what does she care about me?"

 

"You're her namesake. She'll always care about you."

 

Amelia "Aimee" Starmonkey Kosnowski pretends to listen to her mother, leaning out of the side window of the red station wagon, following the progress of a passing boy.

 

"Shirl..." Laverne says in warning..

 

"Aimee, buckle in," Shirley says, and the teenager does so with a grumble. "You're almost as bad as Shawn Patrick!"

 

"Mmm, Shawn-Patrick..." murmurs the teenager.

 

Shirley covers her horror well, and then, to Laverne says, "we'll be back by midnight," raising her brow meaningfully.

 

Aidan waves goodbye, listening intently to his Walkman, but her daughter grins incisively. She sees Lenny come up behind his wife, carrying two sodas and fare for a cab.

 

"Bye mommy. Sorry, daddy." Whatever she's thinking isn't said, but Laverne can hear the wheels turning inside of her.

 

"What were we thinking when we made her?" she asks randomly.

 

Lenny pouts thoughtfully. "I was probably thinkin' 'ooh baby'. But I don't tend to think too clear when I'm on top of you."

 

Laverne laughs, shaking her head - his blue eyes sparkle as they stroll up the main drag, hailing a taxi and directing it in the opposite direction, back to Shirley and Walter's place. He holds her hand the entire way back, knowing what will happen in the sunset-filled guestroom, until the stars twinkle and rockets explode.

 

It's been thirteen years and he still can't wait to do this with her. Again and again and again...

 

***

 

They were married on a sunlit summer afternoon. The bride was attended by friends old and new, but the only relatives in attendance were her infant son and her unborn daughter, kicking quietly in her womb. She wore green, he wore gray, and in tribute to the married couple a small orange cat pranced up onto the altar of Saint Catherine's Cathedral, stretched itself out, and purred, tail twitching thoughtfully, as if contemplating this thing humans called love.

 

***

 

She comes out of the bathroom in a brief red nightdress - he waits for her naked beneath the quilt. Their bodies meet in a dance of imperfections - scar on scar, tattoo on tattoo.

 

She traces the script –print black "L" on his left bicep. "I still don't believe you did this for me."

 

"Neither did Squig," Lenny retorted, grinning. "I almost broke his hand squeezing it." He kisses her shoulder, feels goosebumps, wonders if she still has nightmares about that night. I saw Arty lyin' there on the floor, with Amelia standing right over him, Laverne had told him once, And I realized that there ain't no real monsters, Len. Just little boys in costumes. "What can I give you this year, Missus Kosnowski?"

 

She pretends to think. "Another song. Another cup of coffee. Another kiss..."

 

"Another baby?"

 

"Well..." he moves in a new and unexpected way and her eyed flutter. "Woah - where'd you learn that?"

 

"Squig. He said to pretend you're scuba-diving and..."

 

She covers his lips with her index finger, and he licks it. "I'll have to do him a favor - not that kinda favor, fresh!" she laughs when he makes a face, "but something good."

 

"We've got good."

 

"We do," she agrees. Her hands move to the back of his neck. More distantly, strained, she adds, "Len, whatt're we gonna do about that girl?"

 

"Whatt're we gonna do about the boy?"

 

"Aidan's girl-crazy but he don't give us no trouble. This one thinks she knows everything..."

 

Lenny raises an eyebrow, pretends to think. "Let her run through life like a Comanche riding bareback," he decides.

 

"That's not..."

 

"It's what we want. Don't be afraid, Vernie," he reminds her. She relaxes. There is no fear in her hungry green eyes as they watch his face, as he moves his hips. Smoothly, evenly. Then her body meets his, rising like a whitecap crashing into the ocean only to crash down to the star-lit depths below.

 

"I love you, Lenny," she says, while she still can.

 

"I love you too," he replies, while he still has the strength.

 

Then there's nothing but the bang of the fireworks and the squeak of the old bedstand.


End file.
